Get The Most Out Of Your Mazda3 With These Tires

It’s The Drive’s goal to always deliver the most informative, honest takes for everything we publish for Guides & Gear, and while it’s not always possible to source a million tires for a million scenarios, you won’t catch us dead in our tracks. We work to combine our real-life experiences with feedback from experts and opinions from consumers to deliver concise takes on every product we review. Retail giants including Tire Rack assist in gathering test data and ownership stories as a sort of grand encyclopedia on all things tires and has consistently proven itself to be a valuable asset. Products with little-to-no test data or ownership feedback are typically ignored in favor of proven items with a trusted backing. For more information on how we generally curate our reviews, check out the link here.

There goes our list of the best tires you can snag for your Mazda3. The Vredestein Quatrac Pro earns top marks for its do-it-all, year-round performance, and athletic dynamics. Sumitomo’s HTR A/S P03 steals Best Value for doing its best impression of some premium tires at a very non-premium price point. And no one should forget about Yokohama’s Advan Sport A/S+ for combining sharp dynamism and comfort for a similarly good price. But we’d like to hear back from you. 

Mazda3 owners are a colorful array of discerning drivers, so you must figure out how you want to narrow (or even broaden) your car’s focus. Do you need a do-everything tire for the daily grind and the occasional holiday excursions? Or are you trying to expand upon the capabilities of your lukewarm hatch for a Sunday trip to the local back roads? Decisions, decisions. Here are a few ways through which tires can distinguish themselves.

The all-encompassing category under which most ordinary passenger car tires land. These can be true, four-season, go-anywhere rubber with mild winter capabilities and a big emphasis on wet traction. These can be long-lasting, quiet, and cushy pillows for traversing stretches of highway to the moon and back. It’s a fairly broad term, but all tires here will share a lot of common traits and goals highlighting their appeal as solid commuter tires.

Many will have rubber compounds with a high silica content. Silica is an additive that helps achieve a “just right” softness to remain pliable at most cold temperatures, improve wet traction, and aid in ride comfort. While not as aggressive as winter tires, they may also be abundant in siping and complex tread patterns to evacuate moisture and resist hydroplaning. A few may even don the coveted three-peak mountain snowflake logo to signify enhanced winter usability.

These tires are a leap above all-seasons when the tarmac shines white and the temp needles read single-digits. They will typically have the softest of rubber compounds to remain pliable even in freezing conditions. Their tread patterns will also be the most aggressive with unique patterns and enough siping to funnel an ocean out from underneath them. These work to create a biting edge to claw at snow and ice for traction when the asphalt is a few inches beneath you.

A big disclaimer must be known to anyone looking for their first set. Most if not all of these won’t fare so well in warm weather as the heat combined with the soft compounds will lead to some undesirable driving characteristics. Tread wear usually accelerates as frictional drag increases, and steering and handling will often devolve to a mushy sluggishness versus tires better suited for year-round driving.

The breed that any die-hard enthusiast gets all giddy over, performance tires will provide the most traction for all your cornering and braking needs. The more common and civil of the species, summer performance or ultra-high-performance tires, are formulated with unique rubber compounds and tread designs that aim to maximize dry traction without sacrificing longevity or wet traction. Some acclaimed models from premium brands even manage to pull off astounding levels of wet traction and daily comfort. 

For the dedicated track rats who want their econoboxes three-wheeling around cones, there’s an abundant selection of 200-treadwear competition tires with minimal tread for maximum contact patch. Don’t expect these to fare as well in daily use given the massive penalties in road noise, tread life, and wet traction. Due to the advanced technologies that they employ, performance tires in general will often be the most expensive option.

Here is a crucial and decisive factor in how your car will perform. Tread patterns dictate things like your contact patch on the road and how well it handles inclement weather. 

High-performance rubber with less tread and siping are designed to maximize a tire’s contact with the road and in turn, elevate traction levels. This would usually mean a decline in wet grip as well, but most premium tires utilize ingenious patterns and tread compounds to compensate.

On the other end of the spectrum, all-season and winter tires will feature a plethora of complex tread designs and siping (those thin cuts) to better flush moisture out from under the tire. Siping also provides a biting edge to help winter tires grab at snow and ice as well as micro flexibility within the tread blocks to slightly aid in ride comfort.

Tire sidewall is a big determining factor in deciding the ride quality and handling of a car. You can either handle soft or stiff and respond quickly or sluggishly depending on sidewall construction. Softer sidewalls like on touring and most all-seasons will reward a driver’s sensibility with a soft, cozy ride quality, but it may often come at the expense of numb steering feel and comparatively sluggish responses in spirited driving.

Stiffer sidewalls on high-performance and track day tires may deliver firmer, noisier rides. Combined with the typically thinner sidewall profiles that performance tires are usually made in, ride quality is often not up to snuff with the best touring tires. The benefit is sharper handling and improved feel through the wheel as the thinner, firmer rubber is better at resisting deflection during cornering while not completely dampening all the information going up to the driver.

Touring tires may utilize soft compounds for a comfortable ride in day-to-day traffic but may not be the best at transmitting feel or generating lateral grip when driven with any sort of pep in your step. Economy tires may be firmer to reduce frictional drag thus improving miles per gallon and tire life.

Note that specialized compounds for track day and winter tires will feature very specific formulas to help them excel in their missions but with major compromises in versatility. The soft formulas help track rubber glue themselves to the pavement but will rapidly wear down even when simply wafting along canyon roads. Winter rubber is soft to literally resist freezing, but their compounds leave them feeling sluggish in warm weather and similarly prone to accelerated wear.

Given the small wheel sizes available, Mazda3 tires don’t typically break the bank in most cases, and some models are just downright bargains. Expect most tires for OEM wheels plus a few deviations for owners of aftermarket rollers to cost between $600 to $800 for a set of four. Our Best Value pick will run under $630 for a set measuring in 215/45/R18 and a hair under $480 for a set in 205/60/R16. Special performance rubber like the Michelin and the Yoko will demand a fair bit more coin, however. Expect the Michelins to hover below $900 for a set of four while Yokohamas edge closer to a grand.

You’ve got questions. The Drive has answers.